Thomas Ruff: Herzog & de Meuron

Featuring architecture by the Swiss-based practice Herzog & de Meuron, the works in this series span almost two decades and relate to numerous other works by Ruff. In 1990, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron asked the artist to photograph their Ricola Storage Building in Laufen, Switzerland. Ruff agreed, but instructed a local photographer to take the pictures following specific guidelines. The artist then used a computer to assemble them into a single large-scale image that features the building in the center of the composition against a monotonous, gray sky. As with his earlier Häuser (Houses) (1987–1991) series, which followed similar specifications, the particularity of the architecture subsides as it is objectified by Ruff’s pictorial vision. As he notes: “During my preoccupation with the Häuser series, I thought I could not photograph any ‘highbrow’ architecture. I thought that whatever was in the picture would be more important than the image itself. Not until I had a made a whole range of other series, using a very wide variety of photographic techniques, did I find a way to make an image rather than a document of significant architecture such as that done by Herzog & de Meuron and Mies van der Rohe.”¹

Other buildings included within the series employ methods and strategies Ruff used for his Nächte (Nights) (1992–1996), jpegs (2004– ), and Substrates (Substratum) (2001– ) series, amongst others.